Manager's firing a private vote

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Mayor Harry Mendoza may have racked up his second violation of the state's open meetings laws in just as many months with the forced resignation of City Manager Eric Honeyfield Monday.

According to city councilors, and Mendoza himself, the mayor met with each of them separately to gauge their support on getting rid of Honeyfield. Days before Honeyfield fired Economic Development Director Glen Benefield and City Clerk Patricia Holland in April, sources say Mendoza suggested the terminations and won a majority of the council's support, even though the evening's agenda made no mention of personnel matters.

Both acts, according to Bob Johnson, director of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, violate the state's Open Meetings Act.

"If (Mendoza) reached a quorum," he said of the mayor's efforts to oust Honeyfield, "there was a rolling quorum, and that's a violation."

It is not that the council can't fire Honeyfield. As an at-will employee, the city manager is both hired and fired by a majority. It is a matter of how that majority is reached.

Hiring and firing the city manager is an official action of the council. According to the New Mexico Open Meetings Act, all its official actions must be conducted at duly called public meetings, with all votes taken in public. But when Mendoza asked him to quit Monday morning, Honeyfield said the mayor told him he knew a majority of the council would back him up.

Mendoza admits he approached each councilor individually to gauge each one's support, and came away believing John Azua and Bill Nechero were with him. He was not sure about Allan Landavazo and knew Pat Butler would resist.

As for the councilors, Butler said Mendoza never asked, because the mayor knew he would say no. Azua said he and the mayor often spoke about Honeyfield, but never explicitly about whether or not to fire him. Landavazo said Mendoza asked for his support but didn't get it. Nechero did not return The Independent's call.

Still, Mendoza does not believe he's violated the Open Meetings Act. He does not consider what he did garnering votes, so he insists there was no vote taken. As far as he's concerned, Honeyfield resigned on his own.

"He chose to resign, so we didn't have to take it to a vote," he said.

Honeyfield concedes that he resigned, but doesn't think he had much choice in the matter. If he forced it to a vote, and Mendoza had the support he claimed, he would have been ousted anyway.

Honeyfield suspects he has grounds to challenge Mendoza's request to resign considering the "rolling quorum." But considering the support he figures Mendoza has on the council, he says he will not.

"It's a lost cause," Honeyfield said.

Violation or not, Honeyfield, who served his last day Monday, will not be leaving uncompensated. Thanks to a severance package he negotiated with the last administration, he will be receiving six month's pay, half the $113,000 he earned in 2006, plus all accrued benefits.

"This is politics," Honeyfield mused, "and politics is never pretty."